The disclosures of Peters U.S. Pat. No. 6,283,230 entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR LATERAL WELL DRILLING UTILIZING A ROTATING NOZZLE, issued Sep. 4, 2001, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/019,814, filed Jan. 8, 2008, are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
A large number of wells have been drilled into earth strata for the extraction of oil, gas, and other material therefrom. In many cases, such wells are found to be initially unproductive, or decrease in productivity over time, even though it is believed that the surrounding strata still contains extractable oil, gas or other material. Such wells are typically vertically extending holes including a casing usually of mild steel pipe having an inner diameter of from just a few inches to about eight (8) inches in diameter for the transportation of the oil, gas or other material upwardly to the earth's surface.
In an attempt to obtain production from unproductive wells and increase production in under producing wells, methods and apparatus for cutting a hole in the well casing and forming a lateral passage therefrom into the surrounding earth strata are known. Reference for instance, Landers U.S. Pat. No. 5,413,184 issued May 9, 1995; and Schellsteed U.S. Pat. No. 4,640,362 issued Feb. 3, 1987, which disclose exemplary methods and apparatus for producing lateral holes in the earth's strata surrounding a well casing. However, such known methods and apparatus have not yet been known to provide satisfactory results. In particular, the known apparatus of Landers utilizes a non-rotating blasting type fluid nozzle wherein fluid under pressure is directed at the earth's strata has been found to be unable to produce a hole in the strata of more than a few inches in depth. This shortcoming is believed to be due largely to the inability of the non-rotating blaster type nozzles to form a passage in the strata sufficiently unobstructed to allow advancement of the nozzle into the strata, particularly in strata having suitable porosity and permeability characteristics for oil, gas and/or other commercial products.
Reference also Buckman U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,984, which discloses several embodiments of fluid nozzles for lateral drilling, rotatable by fluid flow discharged from the nozzle. However, observed shortcomings of these devices include that abrasives contained in the fluid flow can abrade structural elements of the nozzles to possibly result in degradation of performance and/or failure thereof.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.